Published on 01/06/2025 – 13:54 GMT+2•Updated
14:37

French authorities say two fans died after celebrations around the country for Paris Saint-Germain’s historic Champions League victory, European club football’s biggest prize.

A 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death in the city of Dax during a PSG street party, according to the national police. And a man was killed in Paris when his scooter was hit by a car during PSG celebrations, the interior minister’s office said. The circumstances of both deaths are being investigated.

French interior minister Bruno Retailleau commented in a post on social media on Saturday after the game:

“True PSG fans are getting excited about their team’s magnificent performance. Meanwhile, barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke law enforcement … It is unbearable that it is not possible to party without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs who respect nothing.”

A police officer was accidentally hit by fireworks in northwest France and placed in an artificial coma because of grave eye injuries, the national police service said.

The interior ministry said 18 police officers in Paris were injured, along with three elsewhere in France, as were 192 people celebrating in the streets.

A total of 294 people were arrested by 2 am, though the celebrations were mostly peaceful apart from the descent into violence in some areas.

Celebrations to continue upon squad’s return to Paris

Meanwhile, the Paris Saint-Germain squad is returning from Munich to the French capital on Sunday to continue celebrating with tens of thousands of the team’s fans.

They are set to arrive in Paris at 4 pm on the club’s own Qatar Airways jet.

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Torrents of predawn rain unleashed flooding that killed at least 111 people in a market town where northern Nigerian farmers sell their wares to traders from the south, officials said Friday, predicting the death toll would grow.

The Nigerian Hydrological Services Agency did not immediately say how much rain fell after midnight Thursday in the town of Mokwa in the state of Niger, more than 180 miles west of Abuja, the capital of Africa’s most populous nation.

SOUTHEAST MET WITH DANGEROUS FLOODING WHILE NORTHEAST BRACES FOR SNOWSTORMS

Communities in northern Nigeria have been experiencing prolonged dry spells worsened by climate change and excessive rainfall that leads to severe flooding during the brief wet season.

In videos and photos on social media, floodwaters covered neighborhoods and homes were submerged, with their roofs barely visible above the brown-colored waters. Waist-deep in water, residents tried to salvage what they could, or rescue others.

“We lost many lives, and the properties, our farm produce. Those that have their storage have lost it,” Kazeem Muhammed, a Mokwa resident, said.

Besides the 111 confirmed dead, “more bodies have just been brought and are yet to be counted,” Niger state emergency agency spokesman IIbrahim Audu Husseini told The Associated Press by telephone Friday afternoon.

Mokwa, nearly 380 kilometers (236 miles) west of Abuja, is a major meeting point where traders from the south buy beans, onions and other food from farmers in the north.

Mokwa community leader Aliki Musa told the AP the villagers are not used to such flooding. “The water is like spiritual water which used to come but it’s seasonal,” said Musa. “It can come now (and) it will reach another twenty years before coming again.”

The chairman of the Mokwa local government area, Jibril Muregi, told local news website Premium Times that construction of flood-control works was long overdue.

“This critical infrastructure is essential to mitigating future flood risks and protecting lives and property,” he said.

In September, torrential rains and a dam collapse in the northeastern city of Maiduguri caused severe flooding that left at least 30 people dead and displaced millions, worsening the humanitarian crisis caused by the Boko Haram insurgency.